[325] 2 Sam. vi. 5.
[326] Psalm lxviii.
[327] Also a paper read before the London and Middlesex Architectural Society in June, 1871.
[328] The king’s minstrel of the last Saxon king is mentioned in Domesday Book as holding lands in Gloucestershire.
[329] In the reign of Henry I., Rayer was the King’s Minstrel. Temp. Henry II., it was Galfrid, or Jeffrey. Temp. Richard I., Blondel, of romantic memory. Temp. Henry III., Master Ricard. It was the Harper of Prince Edward (afterwards King Edward I.) who brained the assassin who attempted the Prince’s life, when his noble wife Eleanor risked hers to extract the poison from the wound. In Edward I.’s reign we have mention of a King Robert, who may be the impetuous minstrel of the Prince. Temp. Edward II., there occur two: a grant of houses was made to William de Morley, the King’s Minstrel, which had been held by his predecessor, John de Boteler. At St. Bride’s, Glamorganshire, is the insculpt effigy of a knightly figure, of the date of Edward I., with an inscription to John le Boteler; but there is nothing to identify him with the king of the minstrels. Temp. Richard II., John Camuz was the king of his minstrels. When Henry V. went to France, he took his fifteen minstrels, and Walter Haliday, their Marshal, with him. After this time the chief of the royal minstrels seems to have been styled Marshal instead of King; and in the next reign but one we find a Sergeant of the Minstrels. Temp. Henry VI., Walter Haliday was still Marshal of the Minstrels; and this king issued a commission for impressing boys to supply vacancies in their number. King Edward IV. granted to the said long-lived Walter Haliday, Marshal, and to seven others, a charter for the restoration of a Fraternity or Gild, to be governed by a marshal and two wardens, to regulate the minstrels throughout the realm (except those of Chester). The minstrels of the royal chapel establishment of this king were thirteen in number; some trumpets, some shalms, some small pipes, and other singers. The charter of Edward IV. was renewed by Henry VIII. in 1520, to John Gilman, his then marshal, on whose death Hugh Wodehouse was promoted to the office.
[330] Ellis’s “Early English Metrical Romances” (Bohn’s edition), p. 287.
[331] From Mr. T. Wright’s “Domestic Manners of the English.”
[332] Among his nobles.
[333] Their.
[334] Great chamber, answering to our modern drawing-room.